


Girls in white dresses

by pamymex3girl



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: College rapes, Gen, Mentions of Veronica's rape, Pre canon and season 1, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 13:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19888564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pamymex3girl/pseuds/pamymex3girl
Summary: They all look the same in the end, they're all girls in white dresses.





	Girls in white dresses

**Author's Note:**

> I'm moving some of my old fanfictions from fanfiction.net to AO3. This one was written in 2009, though I have gone over it again and changed some things. Story remains the same. (Note at the time I added Veronica taping Cassidy's confession on the roof. At least I think that didn't happen in the show, I haven't seen it in a while.)
> 
> Sherrif Lamb's pov. 
> 
> Mention of Veronica's rape and the college rapes.

Lamb doesn’t understand Veronica.

He remembers the first time he saw her – back when she was younger and innocent – she’d been sitting with Lilly Kane in the station. Even then he’d never understood how they could be friends, to him they seemed so different. But they were friends.

Sometimes he can still see them sitting there, two young girls, laughing about stuff he’ll never know. They’re always there somehow.

Young, innocent and happy.

\--

He’ll never understand why she does this.

She sits there, telling him she’s been raped by an 09er and he just does not understand. Why would she even consider playing this game? Haven’t she and her father done enough by now? Does she have to accuse them of yet another crime they did not commit? Why can’t they just let it go.

_‘Tell you what Veronica. Why don’t you go see the wizard. Ask him for some guts.’_

He looks her in the eye when he says it – those eyes filled with tears, with fear, with pain, with betrayal. And he knows, deep down, that he should not have said it. He does. He turns away anyway, she walks away and never turns around.

Sometimes he wishes she had.

\--

Lamb wishes he understood what was going on.

Veronica is different the next time he sees her. Shorter hair, different clothes, no longer that nice girl that sat in those chairs and laughed with her friend. At him she looks with cold eyes, but there’s no real hate in them.

Maybe that’s just something he tells himself.

\--

He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him.

Ever since that moment, since she sat there in from of him, everything seems to have changed, and he can’t figure out why.

They all look the same.

Every girl that has been raped. Just for one second – that last forever – they all look the same. They all wear white dresses, they all have blond hair. They all look like her. Even if in reality they do not.

They all look like her.

And Lamb doesn’t understand why.

-

He absolutely hates being around Veronica.

But she is there at every turn he takes. At first she’s just annoying but then she starts solving his cases. And she’s actually good at it, damn her. Not that he would ever tell her that (he even learns things from her.)

He still hates it when she’s there.

Hates it because in that first second he sees her she’s always wearing that white dress. Even if her clothes don’t resemble that at all, even though her hair is shorter. All he sees is her in that white dress.

Perhaps it’s his conscience telling him something.

\--

Alright, so maybe they’re not crazy.

He used to think they were, Keith Mars and his daughter. How else to explain them going after the richest family in town? But it appears they’re not crazy, just misunderstood.

That night they discover the truth, for just a moment she is different. She smiles at Duncan Kane, stands next to Logan Echolls, shakes Jake Kane’s hand. But she still looks at him with those same cold eyes she always does.

And he can’t understand why.

\--

He tells himself he doesn’t care.

At night when he lies in bed, in the day when he sits behind his desk. He does not care about Veronica Mars. He doesn’t. But he still can’t explain why he always sees her the same way, why all broken girls look the same.

All girls in white dresses.

He closes his eyes, wishes it away. But it returns anyway. And he still doesn’t truly understand why.

\--

He doesn’t know how it happened but at some point he began to trust her.

When she tells him something it’s usually the truth after all. He doesn’t tell her of course. That is what makes the difference when he finds them in the Manning house and she tells him about the closed. She’s begging him to believe her and he does even before he checks.

\--

On another dark night he listens to another unbelievable story.

Of a young boy that blew up a bus. But the proof is all in front of him, there he is, right again. Perhaps he should have let Keith become sheriff. She looks at him with those cold, cold eyes; colder than usual.

He wishes he’d never heard that tape.

There are tears in her eyes. ‘ _you raped me!’ ‘And Dick still thinks I’m a virgin.’_ He closes his eyes, guilt washes over him, deep breath and open your eyes he tells himself. She can say all she wants.

But when he does she’s no longer sitting there.

\--

He waits.

For weeks he keeps expecting Keith Mars to show up and kill him. But he never does. And it dawns on him that he does not know. He wishes the guilt would go away but it does not.

He closes his eyes he sees her sitting there.

Because he knows now it is all his fault. If he had just listened to her that night, if he had just believed that one broken girl, he might have caught him. He might have saved the bus crash victims. But he didn’t believe her.

And here he is now.

\--

He detest the Hearst rape case.

Hates it, because he has to be at every single crime scene. Talk to every girl. And he hates it because they all look the same for that first second, they all look like Veronica. Long blond hair, long white dresses.

They’re all girls in white dresses.

And he tries to listen, tries to be understanding, but he can’t. Because every time he sees them he is reminded of her. And he hates himself, he pushed it away. It’ wasn’t his fault. He would have lost his job if he’d accused an 09’r. He would have lost everything.

It is a poor excuse and he knows it.

\--

This day is one of the worst days of his job.

Because Veronica is in the room. And he doesn’t want to have that conversation again, it will all end in the same place again. Pain. Betrayal. So when he sees she still has her hair he is so relieved, and he looks at her instead of the actual victim because he knows what he will see and he is not ready for.

Long blond hair (even though they don’t have hair), long white dress (though she’ll probably be in her PJ’s.)

He wishes he could take back the words he says.

But he can’t.

\--

He doesn’t understand Veronica.

He probably never will, he stopped trying years ago. When Logan Echolls shows up after he’s arrested Mercer he doesn’t even think about it. He just puts him in the same cell.

Tries to do for Veronica what he should have done years ago.

He hates his conscience, the little of it he has, hates his heart. It’s telling him something. All girls look the same, all girls look like her.

He should apologize. He knows this.

But he’s scared of what she’ll say, what she’ll do, so he never does.

\--

He used to think that when he died his life would flash before his eyes.

He’d thought he’d relive his childhood, his college years, all those years he was the sheriff. All those arrests, all the lives he saved. That’s how he thought it would be in the end.

Instead, as he goes down, he sees only one thing.

He sees a broken young girl, in a white dress, crying, her mascara run out. Long blond hair hangs around her shoulders, tears streaming down her face.

He falls to the ground.

He doesn’t feel pain.

He hears voices, shots fired, and he tries to ignore the irony of Keith trying to save life, like he should have saved his daughter. Would Keith still try to save his life if he knew about that? Probably not.

He doesn’t want to think about it.

The world fades to black.

But it doesn’t matter. Because all he sees is Veronica, and he knows now he should have apologized years ago. He wonders if anyone will care he’s no longer there.

The world fades to black.

It’s over.

He’s gone.

\--

They all look the same in the end, every single one.

_All girls in white dresses._

In the end he only turned away from one of them, he only ignored one. Only Veronica.

Only one girl he didn’t believe.

The only girl he probably should have saved.


End file.
